Package: ion3
Version: 20060107-1
Followup-For: Bug #343713
I've talked to the user community including Tuomo (the Ion3 developer) and
here's what I believe is the consensus regarding this issue. If you look at
the Lua file that the Debian package installs to
/etc/X11/ion3/cfg_bindings.lua, you can find the following lines:
kpress(ALTMETA.."F12", "mod_query.query_menu(_, 'mainmenu', 'Main menu: ')"),
--kpress(ALTMETA.."F12", "mod_menu.menu(_, _sub, 'mainmenu', {big=true})"),
Uncommenting the "big=true" line and commenting out the other line will restore
the previous behavior. Tuomo has favored this new text-based method (which
relies heavily on Tab "complete" and Ctrl-Tab "traverse selection" to select an
item from the menu. Actually, I think that Tuomo is definately stepping in the
right direction with this change; the previous implementation is bulky and
somewhat GUI-oriented in that it relies on arrow keys. The user /can/ just
type in the text of the menu entry to be selected. However, in the event of a
mistype, I'm not sure it's easy to know what state the query system to unroll
selection. I just end up using the arrow keys to reset the state. In the new
menu system, I can clearly see the text I've typed and backspace upon a
mistype. Those in favor of the previous menu system are free to revert back to
it.
However, there /is/ definately some room for improvement in the current Debian
implementation of Ion3. Tuomo's default installation (from his Darcs
repository) doesn't really have a lot of items in it's F12 menu system.
However, this package implements a menu system that reveals the "Debian" menu
system, which I believe is derived from Freedesktop.org standards and/or the
Debian policy. This reveals a ton of items in the menu system upon a tab
completion. It's the same problem faced when upon trying to prematurely tab
complete in a terminal. At least in this instance you get a message like
"Display all 2033 possibilities? (y or n)." I like the fact that I can get
to a menu system of installed applications, however, there's just too many
options revealed at once.
What I'd propose is a mix of the old system and the new system. From the old
system, I'd retain the feature of only revealing one level of the menu
hierarchy at a timei. This way, I can immediately use tab completion right
after hitting F12 to see a reasonable slice of my options. From the new
system, I like seeing the text that I've typed, and I prefer using Tab and
Ctrl-Tab to expedite selection. I'm also okay with the arrow keys working as
they do in the new system -- scrolling up and down through a history and moving
left and right through the typed text. However to implement this change, I
don't know if a change to Tuomo's source code, or a modification to the Debian
package scripts, or some Lua scripts are required.
I'd recommend that the status of this bug be moved to something more along the
lines of "wishlist" because although there's not something wrong as reported by
the original bug report, there are still some wrinkles that should be ironed
out that are in the same vein of the original report.
- Sukant Hajra
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (90, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.14-hole
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Versions of packages ion3 depends on:
ii libc6 2.3.5-8 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libice6 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii liblua50 5.0.2-5.1 Main interpreter library for the L
ii liblualib50 5.0.2-5.1 Extension library for the Lua 5.0
ii libsm6 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System Session Management
ii libx11-6 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System protocol client li
ii libxext6 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii libxinerama1 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 X Window System multi-head display
Versions of packages ion3 recommends:
ii xfonts-100dpi 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 100 dpi fonts for X
ii xfonts-75dpi 6.8.2.dfsg.1-11 75 dpi fonts for X
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